Gore addresses criticisms of his personal lifestyle

Articles — By forcechange on July 22, 2008 5:00 am

Following up on our post from yesterday about Al Gore’s appearance on Meet the Press, we wanted to look at one other issue that Tom Brokaw questioned Gore about, and that is the criticisms that have been levied at him about his own personal energy use.  Since we’ve looked at this issue previously (and argued that while it may not be fair, his personal lifestyle is inevitably held to a higher standard because of his role as the leading environmental activist), we wanted to highlight Gore’s response to these criticisms.

In response to a question from Brokaw about the size of the Gore family residence in Tennessee, Gore asserted:

Well, there–I don’t claim to be perfect, and all of us who care about this issue are, are trying to do our part, but I, I will say this. We buy green energy.  The issue is carbon.  The issue is carbon, and we have, essentially, a carbon-free home.  We buy from wind energy and solar energy. Our roof is covered with solar electric panels, a geothermal system with all these deep wells, and we cut our natural gas bill by 90 percent, and I’m, I’m–we’re, we’re walking the walk and not just talking the talk.  There are always people who are going to try to aim at the messenger if they don’t like the message, and I don’t claim to be perfect, but we are walking the walk.

And regarding the question as to whether he uses private jets, Gore stated:

I’ve–much more frequently on public transportation.  I’m flying on Southwest Airlines again today.  But sometimes the schedule requires that, and sometimes I do that.

Gore also indicated that it would be a good idea to impose a surcharge on jet fuel for private aviation, since it has a disproportionably large carbon footprint.